Portual Trip

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Today we travelled north east to the coastal beach town of Nazare. Nazare began as a fishing village but, somewhere along the line, it became very popular as a summer resort as it has several miles of clean wide beach. It’s a sleepy little town during the off season but during the summer, people flock to Nazare in droves. The local accommodation can’t house everyone so people set up tents on the beach in neat rows. Nazare get its name, according to legend, from a statue of Virgin Mary brought to the town by a monk from Nazareth in the 4th century. The whole town is awash with tourist and handicraft shops.

After poking around some of the shops for awhile we caught the funicular (cable car) that runs up an incredibly steep hill to Sitio, a small town perched on the cliffs overlooking Nazare and the ocean. Sitio sits to close to 400 feet above Nazare and the climb is a good 60 degrees. The view is utterly spectacular in all directions. There is a very old church in Sitio that goes back to the 17th century and the interior is an amazing artistry of beautifully crafted gilt, wood and stained glass. The church also contains the image of Our Lady of Nazare and in September this very reverend statue is brought down to the sea at Nazare in a very colourful and traditional ceremony.

We bought some souvenirs from the church and local crafters so I hope my staff are behaving themselves. We walked down to the light house overlooking the entrance to the Nazare port and Renita and I took a rather scary climb down some rickety steps to get to the point beyond the lighthouse. The views from Sitio and overlooking Nazare are absolutely breath taking.

After a lunch of fish stew (really yummy), sole, cod and wine we walked back down to Nazare instead of taking the funicular. The walk was steep and on cobblestones but we took our time and made it down with no problems. We strolled the beach for a ways and stopped into several shops along the way. Once back at Alfeizerao we were able to send off a couple of blog entries from our little coffee shop where we formally met Lilly, the proprietor, and her friend John. After a glass of wine and a cup of coffee we did our shopping for tonight’s dinner and tomorrow’s breakfast. We think tomorrow may be a kick back day.
We still haven’t seen a golf course yet. DOESN’T ANYBODY GOLF AROUND HERE?????

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